


lovesick

by koroleyva



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, reposted from tumblr, written for my friend!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-08 00:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koroleyva/pseuds/koroleyva
Summary: Sebastian LaCroix does not have girl problems -- and even if he did, he would not callherof all the Kindred in Los Angeles to help him.





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dirthdinan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirthdinan/gifts).



> hiya! this was my work written for a friend!! i figured i'd post it here for posterity!! you can find me on tumblr @koroleyva!

LaCroix, for his part, had waited fifteen minutes after pressing the send button to start getting annoyed. He drums his fingers across the surface of his desk impatiently as he fixes an unblinking stare on the computer screen. The email was terse but forceful, as he’s  _ known  _ for.

 

_ Toreador, _

_ Come to Venture Tower immediately. Do not delay, do not stop to sniff the flowers or plan to sabotage my Tower. Come unarmed and my security will let you in. If you do not, there will be consequences hitherto undreamt of coming down upon your head. _

_ LaCroix. _

 

Short, to the point. It’s as much as his addled brain would have let him come up with – he has a  _ disease _ , he swears he does. A shiny Malkavian disease that haunts his every moment.  _ Stupid. Vulnerable _ . Rebecca hadn’t looked any different last night – that is to say, her hair was the same color it had been for the last two nights ( _ a soft rosy pink that offset the warmth in her eyes when she looked at him as she parted _ ) and she wasn’t dressed in anything particularly heinous,  aside from the clear plasticine jacket she had thrown over her sweater ( _ holo, lacroix! as in holographic? _ ).  _ Then what changed _ ? Why does Sebastian feel so dizzy and light?

Perhaps that is it – his name, rolling off Rebecca’s tongue so playfully and serenely it seemed like it fit there the whole time.  _ See you, Sebastian _ . His hand comfortably resting on the small of her back ( _ he had become aware of it when he sat down to continue working, hand tingling from where he had put it on the chilled plastic of the holographic jacket, burning from the proximity to her _ ). LaCroix feels somewhat like an instigator in the subject – love is a tango, not a waltz.

 

_ Wait, did he say love? _ No. No, not love, this is simply a working partnership. Love is for Anarchs and Kine. He is of pure Ventrue blood, and he does not want to muddy it with some Malkavian’s interference.  _ Then why did you email the Toreador?  _ His traitorous brain whispers, swimming with the cotton-candy scent of Rebecca as his eyes relentlessly scan the computer screen.  _ What does a Toreador do except read and lounge about?  _ He busies himself with snapping a pencil in half, and then another, wondering if Rushforth would be partial to sparing him a box of pencils to use. She’s already gone to the office supply store twice this week – perhaps a third time to blow off steam? He snaps another pencil in half without even realizing it.

 

Just as LaCroix is about to call a blood hunt on her, the Toreador replies.

 

_ Sure whatever. Be there in fifteen. _

_ \- C. Lowe _

 

He lets out an annoyed breath he didn’t know he had been holding. It took her twenty minutes to reply.  _ Nineteen too long for the reply she sent _ . LaCroix tries to compose himself for his visitor, but he knows that under her shrewd gaze he’s going to say something he doesn’t want to. Toreadors don’t have Dominate, but they do have a certain type of look – a knowing certainty that would shock an Antediluvian to the bone. She will know the moment she walks in that he’s hopeless. What will she do? Mock him? Drag him around like a cat with a toy? LaCroix realizes belatedly he’s made a horrible mistake. Will she tell someone? Worse, will she tell  _ Rebecca?  _ He doesn’t stand a chance. But between the Toreador’s prescient grin or the feel of Rebecca’s hand clasped over his as they speak about her latest adventures into the sewers, he feels he understands one more than the other. LaCroix sweeps the broken pencils into the garbage bin to set himself right. Onward march.

  
  
  


           Cassandra Lowe shows up looking entirely too pleased with herself. He’s not quite sure who she’s dressed to impress – it’s freezing outside, quite frankly, and the ridiculous Toreador has simply shrugged on a fur coat over an all-too-thin looking silk dress. Behind her heart shaped sunglasses – coordinating uncannily with the shape of her shoes – her eyes sparkle like she’s just been given the most delightful gift. “I love what you’ve done with the place, Sebastian.  _ Marvelous  _ decorations. The gold finish almost hides where I –”

 

“ _ Enough _ .” LaCroix hisses, “Address me as Prince LaCroix and consider your actions before I have you punished for your insubordination.”

 

Lowe  _ laughs _ . She collapses in the chair across from him like she owns it, chin on her hand and self-satisfied grin on her bright red lips. “No. You called me here.” Lowe tosses some hair out of her face, revealing gaudy gold hoops that almost brush her shoulders. LaCroix fantasizes hanging her from them. “You must be pretty desperate to let me back in.”

 

_ He is _ . “I don’t ask favors, Lowe.” The Ventrue is thankful for the way she has concealed her eyes – not many Toreador bother, enjoying the dizzying effect their gaze has on Kine and Kindred alike, but LaCroix is already fuzzy headed enough thinking about the subject of the night.  _ Rebecca _ .

 

“I don’t  _ do _ favors, Sebastian.” Cassandra rubs her chin idly, “And who the hell says ‘hitherto undreamt of’ in an email pleading for help with your girl problems?”

 

He stiffens. Just how much does Lowe know? He knows she and Rebecca are close – more than close, the Malkavian mentions the Toreador as often as she breathes – but does…could Rebecca know about how he feels and simply  _ mock  _ him behind his back? No.  _ No _ . Impossible. “I do not have  _ girl _ problems.”

 

“You have some kind of problem, emailing me as soon as the sun goes down. If it were about business or politics, there’s hundreds of your little Camarilla cronies scouring the streets that know more than me.” She moves her sunglasses to rest on the top of her head, revealing the shimmery irises that betray her heritage. What is that about? LaCroix’s head feels full of cotton. “So it’s about something  _ I  _ can help with. Unless it’s the God-awful furniture situation you have, I can only come to one conclusion. It’s about Becca, isn’t it?”

 

Sebastian freezes in his furious glaring just long enough to give the Toreador all she needs. That self-satisfied look comes back into her eye as she glances at the Sheriff – as if saying  _ this guy  _ – and then back at the frozen Ventrue. “The walls have ears, LaCroix, and it’s kind of my job to know the juiciest bits of gossip in Los Angeles. Out with it, then, before I get bored.”

 

The room swims dizzyingly with colors that match Rebecca’s eyes – glittery and beautiful, and LaCroix briefly fears he’s going mad.  _ What’s happening to him?  _ He hears the echo of Rebecca’s voice murmuring his name in the distance, the sluggish memory of watching her go spread across his senses as if he has lost her for good.

 

He feels  _ burnt _ . He thinks about Becca whispering to the Toreador about the stupid lovesick stares he finds himself giving her, how he stops typing when she speaks to him because he wants the tinkling hum of her voice to come to him as clear as possible. It’s so easy for him to imagine the way the Toreador before him roars with laughter over his  _ pathetic  _ crush on the beautiful, mind numbing Malkavian.  _ Betrayed _ . LaCroix should have never let her close to him. Though he bodily  _ aches  _ to see her again, to sit with her hand over his while he pretends to do paperwork he rushed to get through before she arrived, his nature recoils at the softness he feels for her.  _ Vulnerable, stupid, weak _ – she said his name just to see what he’d do, took mental note of his idiotic gaping, and then she made fun of him over dinner with her friends. But he isn’t angry over this foregone conclusion. He just aches.  _ Sebastian _ , Rebecca had said with the tenderness and reverence she saves for the fuzzy worms she discards around his office. All a game so she can  _ toy  _ with him. He opens his mouth to say something – anything, a demand for Cassandra to leave, a shout for the Sheriff to shove her head through the wall.

 

But he can’t, for the unlife of him, say a damn word. In fact, he doesn’t trust himself to speak without his voice breaking.  _ Rebecca has betrayed you _ his mind echoes like a warning alarm.  _ She was playing with you, she always love – nobody can love you.  _ His Ventrue nature is cruel to him for good reason.  _ Foolish, lonely boy has never learned his lesson until it’s long since passed the test date _ .

 

Cassandra Lowe raises her eyebrows in a nonplussed fashion while he takes several tries to form coherent words past the bitter taste of betrayal in his mouth. She has no business to look amused as she does. Finally, after an inordinate amount of time gathering them from the fuzzy mess this Rebecca business has made of him, he manages a few words. “The Malkavian has  _ told  _ you about our – her  _ visits _ to the tower?”

 

“No. Not in detail.” The Toreador picks something out from under her nails. She must hear the sharp intake of breath LaCroix takes, because she pauses in her work to fix him with the most ungodly stare he’s seen in his 204 years in dealing with Kindred. Why is he so uncoordinated? He desperately wants to throw the pink shrouded creature lounging in his spare chair out into the streets –  _ get out, get away, never come back for as long as you’re dead, forget what you’ve seen and heard here _ . No one should have the right to see him so…addled as he is, so blissfully numb.  _ Lovesick,  _ LaCroix realizes as he watches Cassandra cross her legs, revealing the heart shaped bottoms of her heels. He’s  _ lovesick _ . What has this Malkavian made of him?


	2. ii

“Do I look like a Toreador? I have no time for such inane things.” Sebastian nearly shouts when he finds his voice. The woman across from him stands to stretch, casting a glance at her watch.  _ Midnight _ . He knows by the way she casts him a bitter glance through the rose of her shades. What could she possibly have to do? Beckett isn’t even in Los Angeles. Cassandra drags her fingers through her hair.

 

“Here’s some advice, Sebastian. You want to stop staring off longingly thinking about how Becca would feel clasped in your arms? Man the fuck up. It’s like talking to Beckett.” The way the Gangrel’s name leaves her mouth is bitter and cold. “Listen to her.  _ Engage  _ her. Compliment her, and for once in your pretentious unlife,  _ be kind _ . Trust Becca. She trusts you. I mean, she doesn’t leave her greatest gifts just laying around  _ anyone _ ’s office.”

 

Lowe eyes the fuzzy worm tucked under his computer monitor.  _ Bitch _ . How long has she known that was there? “You get me, LaCroix?”

 

No. He doesn’t “get” her. The easy way she speaks about  _ trust  _ and  _ kindness  _ as if it isn’t a death sentence for a man like him. Someone will hurt Rebecca – or worse, someone will hurt him  _ with  _ Rebecca. He can’t live easy like some nobody Toreador who lives in a hovel in Santa Monica. He is the Prince of Los Angeles – royalty, blue blood amongst the garbage pile of Kindred that have thrown themselves at his mercy. There are enemies all around him, evidenced by the many-eared walls and the snakes curling about his feet like they’re starved.  _ We are on the brink.  _ He will not stand to see a betrayal in his fold.  _ This is not a game, Lowe _ he wants to shriek before sending the haughty Toreador to final death. Rebecca is a liability; a tie he will need to cut eventually, a danger to his rule as Prince and as a respected leader of the Camarilla.

 

Sebastian thinks of his name in her mouth. The tingling of the plastic jacket against his fingers. Before he realizes it, he’s murmuring in a voice softer than he knew he was capable.

 

“I…understand, Lowe.”

 

The Toreador smirks wide enough to see the pointed edge of her fang. “I sure hope so, Seb.” Before he can correct her, she’s turned her back on him, sinuous form slinking toward the massive golden doors of his office. “I’ll see you later, LaCroix, Sheriff. I have a date.”

 

“A date?” God, he should just  _ stop fucking talking _ . “Beckett isn’t in Los Angeles.”

 

Cassandra’s head snaps back to look at him sharply, eyes angry and dark as if he has cast a curse on her and her family. “It’s not with Beckett. It’s with Damsel.”

 

_ Oh, no _ . The Anarch bitch at the Last Round – dear God,  _ all  _ of Los Angeles will know. “Get back here!”

 

But Lowe is already gone through the doors, heels clicking with Celerity until they’re gone. LaCroix stands furiously to call for Venture Tower security to stop her – but someone takes her place in the doorway.

 

Rebecca smiles with her teeth, hair now a bright blue with pink at the roots.  _ Cotton Candy _ . She’s thrown on something less of an eyesore – a sweet sweater with _ POW!  _ on it, a pair of overalls to go with it. “LaCroix! Was that Cass?”

 

LaCroix feels like he may suffer final death on the spot. The Toreador’s words swim through his ears –  _ compliment her, be kind, trust _ – and he rolls them around for a second before he returns to sit in his desk chair. “It was.” He does not give a reason, Rebecca never needs one.

 

Then, with a great effort that the Malkavian doesn’t see as she gently shuts the doors, apologizing for shutting them up, LaCroix sits and folds his hands over one another.

 

“You look quite nice tonight, Rebecca. Is the sweater new?”

 

_ Like pulling fucking teeth, Sebby  _ Cassandra’s voice echoes in his head.

 

Rebecca pauses in her approach, looking genuinely shocked while grasping at the front of her shirt. Her head starts nodding before her mouth starts speaking. “Yeah. It is. I got it from…” And then her mouth  _ never  _ stops. Back to normal, back to something he understands, watching the Malkavian perch herself where the Toreador had sprawled only a few minutes earlier.

 

_ Trust, be kind, compliment her _ .

 

Sebastian doesn’t know if he’s capable of those things, but the moment Rebecca puts her hand over his, he thinks he can try.


End file.
